Imagery and metaphors

Imagery and metaphors play an important role in the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot as the speaker tries to convey what he sees through imagery and the way he feels through metaphors.

Overall imagery

The most relevant examples of imagery – descriptive words creating visual images – are in connection with the setting:

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

The overall imagery is also constructed through other specific figures of speech or tropes, out of which we outline the most important ones bellow:

Allusions

The poem is filled with literary and religious allusions, some of which are obvious, while others are more subtle.

The first allusion is used in the title which was inspired by the title of another poem by Rudyard Kipling, “The Love Song of Har Dyal”.

Several allusions are related to Shakespeare’s works. For instance, “I know the voices dying with a dying fall” is an allusion to Orsino's lines in “Twelfth Night”.

Also, the poet makes a direct reference to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and his adviser Polonius: 

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two

The most significant religious allusions are those to Lazarus who was brought back from the dead by Jesus Christ and to John the Baptist whose head was brought on a tray to Salome:

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

Lastly, the poet also alludes to other...